The years pass by so quickly
by NinthFeather
Summary: Louise still has seizures sometimes, Saji is still a worrywart, and Allelujah still alarms people entirely by accident. Not much has really changed over the years. [A vignette from the same 'verse as "What became of his ancestry."]
_A/N: For the Day 3 prompt of Gundam 00 Week, "Future."_

 _This was written piecemeal and far too quickly, and I nearly didn't finish it. But I did want to write something set in the 'verse of "What became of his ancestry" this week. For those unfamiliar, the part relevant to this fic is that Allelujah and Marie move to Tokyo after AotT and live in the same apartment building as Saji and Louise. Oh, and Kuroda is technically not an OC—I named and borrowed Saji's friend who went to the CB movie with him at the beginning of AotT._

 _The title's from an old attempt I made at translyrics for "Friends" by Stephanie, the second Gundam 00 ending. There are more notes at the end._

 **The years pass by so quickly**

Louise grumbled to herself as she walked across the apartment to the door, wondering who on Earth was even knocking. She didn't feel like dealing with a visitor right now.

She'd had a seizure the night before, and she was still achy and slightly bruised—they really did need to start buying plastic furniture instead of wooden for the apartment, at this rate, but doing so felt like a defeat. But as a result, not only was she stuck in the house, but Saji had also insisted on staying home from work, started glaring at her every time she so much as tiptoed near the desk where she kept her consulting work, and kept trying to suggest they go to the hospital.

Louise kept shooting him down. The seizure had lasted a minute, she'd recovered fairly quickly, given her track record, and neither of them had noticed any complications. Sure, it was rare for her to have a full-on tonic-clonic seizure without at least getting an aura first, but even so…the last thing she wanted was for whoever admitted her to decide she needed to stay overnight for observation. Because she was sure, somehow, it would turn into "stay a week," and then "stay a month," and then "stay two years," and there was a _reason_ she'd hardly ever stayed in a hospital overnight since she was released three years ago.

Given that thought process, in retrospect, it was pretty obvious that she'd been near the edge of giving herself a panic attack when the knock at the door jarred her out of her thoughts. Normally, she would have made Saji get it, but he wasn't in the room, so she padded to the door, suddenly self-conscious in her pink cotton pajamas and fuzzy slippers.

She opened the door and saw not Allelujah or Marie, but a brown-haired guy she thought looked vaguely familiar.

"Are you here for Saji?" she asked.

He blinked. "Uh, yeah," he said. "I work with him. Our boss says he needs to be in for the meeting this afternoon, no excuses."

"Didn't your boss already give him the day off?" Louise asked, suddenly testy. Saji _shouldn't_ have taken the day off, because she was _fine_ , honestly, but what if he'd been sick? Would this still be happening?

"Well, yes, but—"

"Then he can't ask him to come in," Louise said, getting ready to shut the door in the guy's face, whoever he was.

The guy put his hand on the door. "Look, I don't agree with it either, but I _like_ Saiji, and I'm afraid he's gonna get fired if he doesn't come in."

"Then I get fired," Saji said flatly, coming into the room. "I'll get another job eventually."

"Saji!" Louise exclaimed, rounding on him. "Take this seriously!"

"I am!" Saji snapped, frowning, shoulders tense. "You're the one who isn't!"

Louise blinked at him for a second. "I really scared you, I guess."

"It's been a _year_ since you've had a seizure without warning like that, so, yes, you scared me," Saji said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"A seizure?" the man asked, flinching back a little.

Louise was well aware that her mischievous streak ran a little bit malicious nowadays, and she didn't feel up to restraining herself. "I might have another if you stress me out enough," she said, deadpan.

"Louise!" Saji exclaimed shrilly. He held up both hands in front of himself as he approached the door. "She's just…well, not joking, exactly, she's just being petty, honestly."

"Serves him right," Louise muttered.

"I'm trying to help!" the man protested. "Crossroad, your job's really in danger if you don't show up."

"And Louise is really in danger if she _does_ have another seizure," Saji replied. "I know you're trying to help, Kuroda, but if I have to choose…"

"I thought you said she was doing better," Kuroda said. "You told us you'd be missing work less."

"'Less' isn't the same as 'never,' and I might _never_ be able to promise that," Saji said.

"Wait, Saji, could we get Allelujah or Marie to stay with me?" Louise said. "I'm sure, if it's a matter of your job…"

"They won't be able to take you to the hospital," Saji said, frowning.

Louise winced. The nearby hospital was apparently _far_ too similar to the Super-Soldier Institute in appearance and layout for either Allelujah or Marie to be comfortable in it.

"They could call an ambulance, and then call you," Louise said. "I'm a grown woman, I can ride in an ambulance by myself. Besides, in case you missed the last twenty times I said it, _I don't want to go to the hospital_."

Saji sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'll call them, okay?" He glanced at Kuroda. "Do you want to hang around until I know whether I can come in?"

Kuroda nodded, then smirked. "It's free time off."

Louise shook her head at him. "Come into the living room, if you're insisting on staying."

Kuroda followed her to the couch, a politely curious expression on his face. Louise braced herself for a barrage of questions about seizures.

"Is Allelujah a nickname?" Kuroda asked.

Louise floundered, caught off guard. "Uh, no, that's his name," she said. "Don't ask him about it. He'll tell you the story of how he met his wife and everyone will be uncomfortable."

"What does his name have to do with how he met his wife?" Kuroda asked.

"That's the uncomfortable part," Louise said.

Saji, meanwhile, had gotten his phone out. "Yeah, Allelujah…I need someone to stay with Louise," he said. "She had a seizure last night—no, no, she's fine now, but she didn't have an aura or anything—what do you mean you'll be right over? Don't you have work?" He was silent for a few moments. "Well, if you already have off anyway…Thank you. I'll see you in a few minutes."

He turned to Louise and Kuroda. "I guess the pottery studio has some sort of special workshop, so his beginner's class is cancelled for today."

Louise grinned. She was still faintly amused by the fact that former international terrorist Allelujah Haptism and his homicidal other personality were now teaching pottery classes at a studio where they'd started out doing janitorial work. It wasn't really what she would've imagined one of the infamous Gundam pilots doing with their retirement, but the man seemed to enjoy it, at least.

A few seconds later, there was knocking on the door. Saji opened it, to Allelujah, who was wearing his normal tight turtleneck and jeans, his hair in a particularly messy ponytail.

"Hey!" he said. "Hope you feel better soon, Louise!"

"But in the meantime, you get to babysit?" she replied.

Allelujah grinned, sheepish. "If you have another seizure, you won't be able to call the hospital yourself, and Saji will worry if no one's here." He turned to Saji. "I've got this under control, though. Even though me and Marie don't go to the hospital, I looked up the number and memorized it, so I'll be able to call quickly if something _does_ happen."

Saji stared for a second. "Allelujah, you do know about calling 1-1-9, right?"

Allelujah blinked. "Is that one of those weird Japanese language number pun things?" he asked. "Because you know I'm not good at those."

Saji made a whimpering noise. "1-1-9 is how you call the hospital when it's an emergency," he said, voice strained. "If you call the regular number, you'll end up on hold for a half an hour."

"Oh," Allelujah said. "So there's, like, a special emergency number?"

" _Yes_ ," Saji said. "That's why all those posters about heart attacks and strokes say to call 1-1-9 if you notice symptoms."

"Oh, I remember thinking it was an information line," Allelujah said absently. "This makes more sense."

Saji kneaded his eyes with his hand. "What about if there was a fire?" he asked. "What were you going to do then?"

"I know what to do if there's a fire!" Allelujah said indignantly. "There's evacuation instructions posted in all the stairwells!" He paused for a second. "Wait, is the number for fire emergencies, too? That seems really inefficient…"

Kuroda stared at the two of them in a sort of horrified wonder. "Where the _hell_ was he raised, that—mmphf!" He sputtered, as Louise jammed a hand over his mouth.

"Hell comes close enough, _don't_ ask," she said. "Just sit back and enjoy the culture clash without thinking about what led to it. It's funnier that way."

Now Kuroda was looking at _her_ with a sort of horror.

"Or just be horrified, I don't care," Louise said, flipping a strand of hair over her shoulder. "But laughing's better for you. My therapist says so."

Kuroda proceeded to gape at her. Meanwhile, her husband and Allelujah were still trying to ferret out the holes in Allelujah's knowledge.

"Look, it's not like we ever go to the hospital, anyway—you know that place freaks us out!" Allelujah defended.

"Yeah, but what if you had a real emergency?" Saji asked. "Wouldn't you want to know the number?"

"The whole point here is that I thought I did!" Allelujah said. "Maybe Marie knows this mysterious emergency-services-summoning number, and she just never told me about it because she thought I did too. Colonel Smirnov seems like the kind of person who would make sure she memorized it."

"Okay, yeah, probably," Saji said. "Why couldn't _she_ be here?"

" _She'_ s at work!" Allelujah huffed. "And what's so wrong with me?"

Louise snickered.

"Louise!" Allelujah protested, actually sounding a little hurt.

"Oh, come on, you practically invited that one," Louise said.

"Maybe," Allelujah conceded. "See, she's doing okay enough to tease me and I know what 1-1-9 is now. We'll be fine! Go have your meeting!"

"Um, _that_ Colonel Smirnov?" Kuroda said hesitantly, reminding Louise he was still there. "Like, the famous one from the HRL?"

"Is there more than one?" Allelujah asked.

"Andrei never made it to that rank," Louise said, with a bit of a pang, because she hadn't had the smoothest relationship with the guy, but he hadn't deserved the end he got.

"So, yeah, that Colonel Smirnov," Saji said. "Um, he and Marie were kinda close when he was alive. It's not really a big thing."

"He's kind of famous," Kuroda said.

"I'll ask Marie to give you an autograph?" Allelujah offered.

"Um, why would I want _her_ autograph? _She's_ not famous," Kuroda said.

Allelujah looked ready to say something. Saji jabbed him in the side.

All this time later, and Saji still didn't like telling people who didn't already know about what he'd done in the war, or even that he knew other people who'd done things in the war. Marie didn't really care if people knew she was Soma Peries, but Saji wouldn't want to answer questions about how they'd met. Louise sighed.

"Get going before your boss yells at you, Saji," Louise said. Then, she grinned. "Allelujah and I will make dinner."

Saji paled. Even after years of cooking lessons from him, _neither_ of them were precisely good chefs. Allelujah had a very limited repertoire, and tended to accidentally break kitchen utensils if he got flustered; Louise's food just tasted awful.

Allelujah rolled his eyes. "We'll order in," he said. "I hope your meeting goes well."

Saji let out a quiet laugh. "Thanks," he said, a bit more emphatically than he strictly had to.

Kuroda nodded to her as he got up. "Feel better, Ms. Crossroad."

Louise smiled. "Thank you."

Saji and Kuroda walked out of the apartment as Allelujah settled down on the couch next to her. She was still achy and tired but at least she didn't have to worry about her troublesome husband getting himself in hot water at work anymore.

When she and Saji were teenagers, they'd dreamt of marrying and having an apartment together. This wasn't at all what they'd pictured—both of them were supposed to be working for high-powered engineering firms, there were supposed to be little Japanese-Spanish children running around everywhere, both of them were supposed to be healthy, and the Kazakh ex-terrorist neighbor flipping through the TV channels next to her was not a part of the equation.

That would have been an ideal future. And Louise still couldn't help wishing she had ended up healthy, or that she and Saji felt a little more ready for children. But the pace of their lives wasn't unpleasant, and Marie and Allelujah's friendship was definitely one of the benefits of the unexpected path their lives had taken.

 _Things could definitely have turned out worse_ , she thought, leaning back on the couch to watch the nature documentary Allelujah had settled on.

 _A/N: A tonic-clonic seizure is what most people think of when they think of a seizure—uncontrolled muscle spasms, loss of consciousness, etc. There are other types of seizures which Louise might well also have but which would not take her as long to recover from. An aura is a warning symptom that comes before a seizure or migraine; seeing lights or smelling odors that are not actually present are common types of aura. Many people who have seizures use auras to know when they need to go someplace that is safer for them to have a seizure in (less hard objects, fewer people they may unknowingly hit, etc.) 1-1-9 is the fire/ambulance number in Japan; the police number is different._

 _On a lighter note, Kuroda still hasn't connected the dots between Allelujah and that interesting piece of cinema he watched with Saji. I might someday write him doing so._


End file.
